DIY Gifts: How to Make a Unique Photo Box Gift

This is one of my favorite DIY gifts to give to my friends and family! This projects matches together 2 elements of my gift giving philosophy: personal (photos) and repurposing (photo box container). Whenever I go on my thrift store/garage sale/ flea market shopping expeditions I always pick up trinket boxes that speak to my soul. Then I keep them in my collection of future supplies until they I find the perfect person to give them to. I think you will enjoy what these little trinkets said to me… “Make me into a photo box for a unique little accordion photo album”!

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Photo Box Instructions:

Step 1) Measure the opening of the box you are using. You will want to take a measurement of the height and the width.

Step 2) Once you have the measurements, subtract 1/4″ from each direction. This is so the paper will be slightly smaller then the box.

For example: If the box opening is 5″ wide x 3″ deep, you would subtract 1/4″ from each direction so your new measurement will be 4 3/4″ wide x 2 3/4″ deep. I will use this measurement for the rest of this tutorial. This will be the size you cut your paper.

Step 3) Take a full sheet of card stock and using your scissors or paper cutter cut strips equal to the new width measurement you figured.For this example, the width measure is 4 3/4″.

Step 7) Starting at one end, start folding at each tack mark, alternating the direction of the fold to create an accordion-fold.

Now it’s time to add your own personality to your photo box. For the first one, I cut a smaller piece of card stock in a contrasting color to create a photo mat. I chose to include photos on every other fold. On the other sections, I added “family” stickers and colorful hearts (that I cut from extra card-stock). To attach, I used a glue gun to secure the bottom fold to the base of the box. I also glued a couple buttons to the top fold to have a place to lift the album up out of the box.

For the second box, I kept the vintage feel with the embellishments and used a tag look. You can decide on pictures and stickers that fit your style. I opted to not attach this album but left it so it could be completely pulled out by the clip at the top.

For the silver box I glued turquoise felt to the top of my box to finish it off. The wooden box does not have a top so the album just lays inside.